I was recently complaining to an acquaintance but training for this half marathon. Not someone who knows me very well, but someone who was willing to listen to how much fun training is not. All she said when I was done was,"So tell me why you are running?" The simple answer is because I can. If we wanted to break it down and analyze it further and perhaps make it more interesting I could confess of the deep need for my children to see me in action. To see all of my limbs moving. To witness strength and capability on a physical level emanating from their mother. Something I never got see in my own mom. There is a power to moving your body beyond limitation. Beyond what you thought it was capable of. I want my children to always know I tried and to know that they must also try. Of course right now my children are too young to grasp anything beyond, " Mom likes to run with her friends." Which is s good start.
Each mile I run sparks something new inside me. Another goal becomes within my reach. It is something like that song,"This Little Light of Mine." Sometimes all we need is one shaft of light that blows away the darkness, gives us just enough of an outline to show us that the coat hanger isn't a monster and we have nothing to fear. One of my friends recently ran five miles and was telling me how great she felt afterward. I smiled and responded,"It's empowering, isn't it?" Her own smile tilted and grew and she said," Yes, it really is!" And that is just what it is, empowering. It never felt that way in my twenties and certainly not in my "Kermit" teens. Running was just something to do. Now it feels symbolic, large. I may never run another half-marathon and I can almost guarantee I won't run a marathon, training sucks the fun out of running. But it has made me realize that the only thing that stops us from dog anything, trying anything is ourselves.
When I wake up in the morning and feel tired and tell myself it is going to be bad day or a long day it is like Samantha Stevens has wiggled her nose and made it so. My oldest will miss his us, my husband will forget something important and will need me to bring it to his office, my toddler will only my attention and my four year old will want to finger paint..on my walls. I will discover I have nothing for dinner and no clean underwear. It's enough to make you want to go back to bed and stay there until you can start over with a new sunrise. I was explaining this to some of my mommy friends like this," If I have to take all three kids to Target I just tell myself it is going to be fine and they will behave." It works much better than telling myself how awful it will be because she enough that is what happens. I told them to try it. They all smiled but their eyes said, "You're crazy."
I met another woman a few days ago who is running the same half marathon. She is already up to 11 miles. When I told her I was at 9 miles her eyes sort of bulged and for moment I thought she had some food stuck in her throat. Then I realized she was just shocked that I was so far behind. I started to panic. Perhaps she is right. My training has been anything but regular. I have tried but with three kids, working every weekend and my husband also training it is almost impossible to stick to any kind of strict routine. Not to mention I don't really care for routines. She is at 11 miles. I'm at 9 and my thighs hurt, my knees hurt even my gluteus maximus feels maxed out. How will I make it to the finish line? It was at that moment that I realized I was sinking myself before I even got to the starting line. I was talking myself out of something that I can do. I m running because I can. I am running because it empowers me. I am running because my gluteus maximus has never looked better.
I may take a long time to reach the finish line but waiting there for me will be three little people who won't know how long it took or what it means to me. They will have a memory of a moment when their mom was strong and healthy and ran breathless to them, while they all pointed to the bounce house and Dunkin Donut booth begging for Munckins.
So we can take the pyschologist approach to my running and break it down and beat it like an old rug, spreading dust in a thousand directions and forgetting where it all came from or we can keep it simple and say," I am running because I can."
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Signs
When I lived in Arizona, I would call my mother and ask her to call and remind me of anything from my work schedule to a hair cut appointment. I was 25. I suppose one should not brag of such a thing. And today some smart psychologist would certainly accuse my mother of "enabling " me to not be independent or some other kind of blah blah blah. The truth was I could have bought a calendar and wrote things down but how much better is it to hear a voice you love calling you to remind you that you have a doctor's appointment on Thursday at 2 and "wear clean underwear"? My mother enjoyed doing those things for me. On a physical level her life was limited, especially as I got older but her mental self was like solid steel. You could not penetrate through and take a single memory or telephone number away from her. Her body may have been completely disobeying her every command but somehow her multiple sclerosis could not touch a single neuron or basil ganglia that controlled anything remotely to do with memory, intuition or sassiness.
My mother passed away five years ago today. She had a bad heart that went undetected for more than a year. She was misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia and took whatever advice or medication was dispensed by this doctor or that and went about her business. It all came to a head when she landed in the ED with severe pain and it was finally determined she was having chest pain and a cardiac catheterization was done which revealed a blockage in her main arteries of 99%. She would not live out the week we were told unless she had open heart surgery. It all happened very fast and it felt as though I were watching it play out in someone's life, not mine. I almost never felt a part of the whole week. Her time in the ICU after the surgery was, to be frank, brutal. For all the years that she had trouble moving her limbs she could always talk to me. While she was in ICU she remained intubated and I could not hear her voice. When she was awake she could only nod or shake her head and smiling was even tough thanks to that God awful tube poking out of the side of her mouth. You have to understand I grew up with my mother's voice not her body. I hardly had a single friend who had a parent who had any kind of disability so their lives were not divided...their parents walked and talked. My mother talked, she scolded, she loved from her chair. She was as good a parent as any and better than some. She loved with her voice. I didn't need her arms wrapped around me to know I was safe with her. It was always her voice. My biggest fear that week was not being able to hear her voice again. I didn't, at least not the way I wanted. When the tube was removed she was able to whisper a thank you.
So really why would I have wanted a calendar when a sweet voice would happily ring my phone and remind of anything and everything. She felt useful , I felt loved. I was explaining this to my girlfriend last week. She found it funny and probably amazing that my mother would do that. The crazy part was my mother never needed to write it down, she just remembered. I asked my husband that week, when I realized how bad things were going," Who will remind me to do stuff?". He answered he could, which only made me cry harder because that man can't remember where he put his keys.
I was explaining all this to my girlfriend as a way of getting ot my point that I needed to make an eye doctor appointment. I think she missed the point because she said," call and make an appointment." I said,"I keep forgetting."
Last weekend we were having dinner with friends and I had placed my glasses on the table. No one was paying particular attention when our 17 month old grabbed them and proceeded to break them beyond repair. She just pulled at the ear pieces and snap that was all she wrote. I stared in disbelief. I was too tired to get really upset. I am able to balance them on my nose so when I drive I can see where I am going. The same girlfriend who missed the point of my very long story was in the car with me the next evening and just stared at me. "Your glasses are cracking me up" she said finally. I explained what happened and she was very quiet for a moment. Then she smiled at me and said," Did it occur to you that your mother whispered to your daughter and told her to break your glasses so you would get around to making that eye doctor appointment?" This is why I love this particular friend. She sees things in a way that I would not yet I don't find her explanations to be born of craziness. She is crazy, yes but in a subtle and enjoyable way. This was something I would not have thought of on my own. And perhaps for some people that is just plain crazy talk. But for me it was beautiful. It placed my mother right there in my space and I could hear her saying,"Isn't it time to get your eyes checked?" Most people may not believe in signs from those who have left us and those people may not have had that loss yet that makes you crave what is gone and can no longer be.
It is a club, right now a small club, that I have few members in. I am sure they would agree with my friend that my mother was throwing me a sign. Perhaps she sent other signs but they were too subtle, she may have forgotten I don't always catch on that quick, or she might be really busy, I do have a sister. And now I do have Microsoft and a calendar that pops up and dings with reminders of what I have to do. It is not the same but life does go on. I do have doctor appointment to thank her for and all those other things she called and reminded me to do and that is enough to make me smile.
My mother passed away five years ago today. She had a bad heart that went undetected for more than a year. She was misdiagnosed with fibromyalgia and took whatever advice or medication was dispensed by this doctor or that and went about her business. It all came to a head when she landed in the ED with severe pain and it was finally determined she was having chest pain and a cardiac catheterization was done which revealed a blockage in her main arteries of 99%. She would not live out the week we were told unless she had open heart surgery. It all happened very fast and it felt as though I were watching it play out in someone's life, not mine. I almost never felt a part of the whole week. Her time in the ICU after the surgery was, to be frank, brutal. For all the years that she had trouble moving her limbs she could always talk to me. While she was in ICU she remained intubated and I could not hear her voice. When she was awake she could only nod or shake her head and smiling was even tough thanks to that God awful tube poking out of the side of her mouth. You have to understand I grew up with my mother's voice not her body. I hardly had a single friend who had a parent who had any kind of disability so their lives were not divided...their parents walked and talked. My mother talked, she scolded, she loved from her chair. She was as good a parent as any and better than some. She loved with her voice. I didn't need her arms wrapped around me to know I was safe with her. It was always her voice. My biggest fear that week was not being able to hear her voice again. I didn't, at least not the way I wanted. When the tube was removed she was able to whisper a thank you.
So really why would I have wanted a calendar when a sweet voice would happily ring my phone and remind of anything and everything. She felt useful , I felt loved. I was explaining this to my girlfriend last week. She found it funny and probably amazing that my mother would do that. The crazy part was my mother never needed to write it down, she just remembered. I asked my husband that week, when I realized how bad things were going," Who will remind me to do stuff?". He answered he could, which only made me cry harder because that man can't remember where he put his keys.
I was explaining all this to my girlfriend as a way of getting ot my point that I needed to make an eye doctor appointment. I think she missed the point because she said," call and make an appointment." I said,"I keep forgetting."
Last weekend we were having dinner with friends and I had placed my glasses on the table. No one was paying particular attention when our 17 month old grabbed them and proceeded to break them beyond repair. She just pulled at the ear pieces and snap that was all she wrote. I stared in disbelief. I was too tired to get really upset. I am able to balance them on my nose so when I drive I can see where I am going. The same girlfriend who missed the point of my very long story was in the car with me the next evening and just stared at me. "Your glasses are cracking me up" she said finally. I explained what happened and she was very quiet for a moment. Then she smiled at me and said," Did it occur to you that your mother whispered to your daughter and told her to break your glasses so you would get around to making that eye doctor appointment?" This is why I love this particular friend. She sees things in a way that I would not yet I don't find her explanations to be born of craziness. She is crazy, yes but in a subtle and enjoyable way. This was something I would not have thought of on my own. And perhaps for some people that is just plain crazy talk. But for me it was beautiful. It placed my mother right there in my space and I could hear her saying,"Isn't it time to get your eyes checked?" Most people may not believe in signs from those who have left us and those people may not have had that loss yet that makes you crave what is gone and can no longer be.
It is a club, right now a small club, that I have few members in. I am sure they would agree with my friend that my mother was throwing me a sign. Perhaps she sent other signs but they were too subtle, she may have forgotten I don't always catch on that quick, or she might be really busy, I do have a sister. And now I do have Microsoft and a calendar that pops up and dings with reminders of what I have to do. It is not the same but life does go on. I do have doctor appointment to thank her for and all those other things she called and reminded me to do and that is enough to make me smile.
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